Player Discussion: Nikolaj Ehlers Part III

[Ippenator]

Both of these guys turn the puck over too often for my liking. Ehlers due to apparent lack of vison and Laine because he is just a bit too slow. Both should improve with experience but it is frustrating just the same.

This I agree completely about and I accept the Laine part too 100%. I have no problems in seeing what are Laine’s weaker areas. But I see still huge imbalance in how Laine is often treated on these boards with his weaknesses, but at the same time so many other players get a free pass with their glaring weaknesses. Ehlers gets his free pass because of being such a magnificent skater, which seems to be much more appreciated in present hockey than elite shooting skills. Which is then in my opinion why Laine gets also so much more bashed, because there is this really strange admiration for players creating their own chances. Just really strange thing to look for in a team sport like hockey.

 

[Trilliann]

It's a knee jerk reaction to the Laine comments in last PGT. Nothing more.

It's not. This has been going on since last season.

To be fair, if you read the prospects board, he doesn't like speedy Finnish kids either.
It's not just a Laine vs Ehlers thing.

 

[kelsier]

He's one of the fastest players in the league no question. Those hands look pretty silky too. There's a reoccuring pattern in Ehler's game though. He skates into the zone as fast as a bullet and instead of making a quick pass he keeps the puck looking for an open lane to shoot. Was it against the Colorado or Vegas where Ehlers drove to a position at the O-zone where he was basically surrounded from right, left and the front, before he would let go. It seems very predictable from an outside viewer (not sure if that is something the other team's coaches/netminders take in count for). I think once he gets older and starts to rely on his team mates a little bit more, he could become pretty lethal. He has a good shot though and being "selfish" enough to use it isn't a bad thing, but at this league in particular, the goalies happen to be pretty good as well. So it kind of evens out.

 

[lablite47]

Laine was dangling a lot succesfully during his time in Liiga, so honestly his dangling attempts have nothing to do with Ehlers’s dangling attempts. Ehlers doesn’t even dangle really that often very impressively. He more often uses pure speed to just go past the opponents. If he makes some move it is usually just something very simple and very early before the opponent. It is his skating that makes it possible for him to get past the opponent.

His so called dangling skills have been seen in his breakaways, where he practically has never scored despite of having tons of chances. He is not really even a real dangler with speed, which for example Pavel Bure was at his days. Ehlers is pretty much a pure speedster, with a pretty good shot (not great but still pretty good) and mostly just a bit above average abilities in addition to those. So far he doesn’t make me very excited.

I have been mostly in fact quite disappointed and frustrated with him, as I was seriously hoping for him to start developing with his playmaking and starting to become a player that could use his tremendous speed to help in creating a lot of high danger scoring chances for his teammates. But instead he is really looking like a Maxim Afinogenov clone which is just horribly disappointing for me. The hope I have in him is still that he is at least relatively young, and maybe he can even develop still into a real playmaker kind of a speedster, maybe like Paul Kariya. Unfortunately it’s not very likely though to change as much as a player at that age anymore. Kariya was already an excellent playmaker during his second NHL season, and that was in addition of being an excellent 50 goal goalscorer already then.

Btw, if some people really like to compare Ehlers and Laine, it’s still good to remember that Ehlers is 2 years older than Laine. Laine is already miles ahead of what Ehlers was as a player as a 19 year old (his rookie season). I wasn’t comparing them in any other ways here, but in how easily Laine is condemned for having too many turnovers, but at the same time Ehlers is practically praised for being so great with the puck, but in reality he has even more of giveaways than Laine has.

I agree that most of what Ehlers has is speed at this point and although it is electrifying and exciting to the point that he takes you out of your seat, (that is how is able to enter the O-zone, speed alone) but more often than not, unless he finishes the rush by somehow scoring himself, not much 'play making' takes place. IMO anyways.

I too have to ask, if his dangling is so elite, why does he not score on breakaways?

McDavid is fast (faster in fact) but he is able to also see the ice and his line mates at the same time, and use them way more than Ehlers.

He does have to start using his line mates more, if he is able.​

 

[YWGinYYZ]

McDavid is fast (faster in fact) but he is able to also see the ice and his line mates at the same time, and use them way more than Ehlers.

There's a reason McDavid went first overall. I'm quite happy with Ehlers' progression so far, personally. Comparing him to McDavid ... there aren't many players that would come out on the winning side of that.

 

[lablite47]

There's a reason McDavid went first overall. I'm quite happy with Ehlers' progression so far, personally. Comparing him to McDavid ... there aren't many players that would come out on the winning side of that.

I wasn't comparing Ehlers to McJesus. That would be silly. I'm comparing someone who has vision and uses his line mates to someone who does not whilst both having elite speed.

And I am happy with Ehlers so far as well. I was just supporting ippenator in saying that I don't not see how this board thinks that Ehlers has superior dangling skills. Not in my view to this point anyways. Great/elite speed yes.

 

[DashingDane]

This I agree completely about and I accept the Laine part too 100%. I have no problems in seeing what are Laine’s weaker areas. But I see still huge imbalance in how Laine is often treated on these boards with his weaknesses, but at the same time so many other players get a free pass with their glaring weaknesses. Ehlers gets his free pass because of being such a magnificent skater, which seems to be much more appreciated in present hockey than elite shooting skills. Which is then in my opinion why Laine gets also so much more bashed, because there is this really strange admiration for players creating their own chances. Just really strange thing to look for in a team sport like hockey.

First of all. Ehlers doesn't get a free pass and never has. No Jet is immune to criticism. If you disagree I really don't think you read these boards.

Second. It's a matter of expectations. There will always be greater expectations for a 2nd overall draft pick that would go 1st most years than a Ehlers or a JoMo that was never considered elite going into their draft. Add to that a fairly big crowd of Finns that have spent the last 1 1/2 year pumping his tires claiming he could be generational, the next Lemieux ect. and you have a recipe for inflated expectations.

Potential stars always have more critics. Look at Lebron, Ronaldo and Tom Brady. There is no point in criticizing someone like Tanev because no one expected anything. My advise is to learn to live with it because if he keeps improving their will be even more critics in the future.

 

[Aavco Cup]

Interesting chart

 

[DashingDane]

I wasn't comparing Ehlers to McJesus. That would be silly. I'm comparing someone who has vision and uses his line mates to someone who does not whilst both having elite speed.

And I am happy with Ehlers so far as well. I was just supporting ippenator in saying that I don't not see how this board thinks that Ehlers has superior dangling skills. Not in my view to this point anyways. Great/elite speed yes.

I think they have very similar dangling skills and don't consider one better than the other. But I do think Ehlers speed makes him a more successful dangler at a higher rate...

 

[YWGinYYZ]

McDavid is fast (faster in fact) but he is able to also see the ice and his line mates at the same time, and use them way more than Ehlers.

I wasn't comparing Ehlers to McJesus. That would be silly.

Looks like a comparison to me.

My argument is that there are very few players who can play with the speed of McDavid, and see the ice well at the same time. You're holding Ehlers to a standard that's difficult for almost any player to achieve.

Interesting chart

Looks pretty damned good to me - I'd always considered him one of our best at zone entries, and this backs that up.

 

[lablite47]

Looks like a comparison to me.

My argument is that there are very few players who can play with the speed of McDavid, and see the ice well at the same time. You're holding Ehlers to a standard that's difficult for almost any player to achieve.



Looks pretty damned good to me - I'd always considered him one of our best at zone entries, and this backs that up.

I am not saying that he isn't our best in terms of zone entries, he is by far the best at that in my mind. It's what he does with the puck once inside is what I believe he needs to improve on. Not sure he has that vision component in him, especially at his his speed?

We shall see.

 

[Howard Chuck]

Nik is improving all the time. He has the speed and the stick handling and his vision is better now than it was at the beginning of the year. He will be just fine.

It’s nice that we have these exceptional talents on the jets that we can nitpick

 

[kelsier]

Looks like a comparison to me.

He used someone better (at something) as an example. That's not the same as comparing players' as a whole. Seems like an interpretation error.

Nowadays whenever you mention another player in the same paragraph it's nearly every time received as a "player A < B if not vice versa".

 

[GNP]

I am not saying that he isn't our best in terms of zone entries, he is by far the best at that in my mind. It's what he does with the puck once inside is what I believe he needs to improve on. Not sure he has that vision component in him, especially at his his speed?

We shall see.

________________________________________________________

Ehler's father is a coach, and Maurice is a good student of the game. Nik wants to get better, and "will listen" to his coaches. He has a great attitude, and will develop some patience, and I'm convinced he'll get better in the offensive zone. When he does-look out, because his speed is second to none. He's definitely one of the "fastest" NHL forwards--and probably as fast, or very close to McDavid.

 

[Ippenator]

First of all. Ehlers doesn't get a free pass and never has. No Jet is immune to criticism. If you disagree I really don't think you read these boards.

Second. It's a matter of expectations. There will always be greater expectations for a 2nd overall draft pick that would go 1st most years than a Ehlers or a JoMo that was never considered elite going into their draft. Add to that a fairly big crowd of Finns that have spent the last 1 1/2 year pumping his tires claiming he could be generational, the next Lemieux ect. and you have a recipe for inflated expectations.

Potential stars always have more critics. Look at Lebron, Ronaldo and Tom Brady. There is no point in criticizing someone like Tanev because no one expected anything. My advise is to put on your big boy pants and learn to live with it because if he keeps improving their will be even more critics in the future.

Anyway the zone entry statistics that Aavco Cup posted were for sure pretty interesting. I wasn’t also surprised of Ehlers having so many zone entries. Never claimed that he doesn’t have a lot of them. But what was interesting was that he has a huge amount of his entries also as dump in’s, while many people were pointing out to me how he so rarely does dump in’s. I was already then thinking of maybe debating that, as my eye test has clearly told me that Ehlers is as much as any other Jet doing constant dump and chase. I just didn’t have the data to prove my eye test, so I decided to not bring this up. But for sure there is evidence of it now, so lets not claim that Ehlers is so much just carrying the puck, when in reality he is doing clearly the most of dump in’s of all the top zone entry players in the whole NHL.

What this kind of a chart does not really unfortunately show is how often the zone entry leads really to a goal. Would be nice to see the same way a chart with this information. I wonder if it would be available from somewhere? At least we can see what I suspected, that Ehlers’s zone entries lead more often to turnovers than Laine’s. Sure Laine is dumping the puck more than Ehlers, but still his dump in’s have been pretty succesful for his team, as we can see.

 

[DashingDane]

Anyway the zone entry statistics that Aavco Cup posted were for sure pretty interesting. I wasn’t also surprised of Ehlers having so many zone entries. Never claimed that he doesn’t have a lot of them. But what was interesting was that he has a huge amount of his entries also as dump in’s, while many people were pointing out to me how he so rarely does dump in’s. I was already then thinking of maybe debating that, as my eye test has clearly told me that Ehlers is as much as any other Jet doing constant dump and chase. I just didn’t have the data to prove my eye test, so I decided to not bring this up. But for sure there is evidence of it now, so lets not claim that Ehlers is so much just carrying the puck, when in reality he is doing clearly the most of dump in’s of all the top zone entry players in the whole NHL.

What this kind of a chart does not really unfortunately show is how often the zone entry leads really to a goal. Would be nice to see the same way a chart with this information. I wonder if it would be available from somewhere? At least we can see what I suspected, that Ehlers’s zone entries lead clearly more often to turnovers than Laine’s. Sure Laine is dumping the puck more than Ehlers, but still his dump in’s have been pretty succesful for his team, as we can see.

I don't think it's fair to say I can't handle criticism on Ehlers however. I only speak up when I think someone is posting something blatantly wrong with nothing to back it up. I still think that is what you did by the way. I have zero issues with anyone critiquing Ehlers and I have mentioned his flaws plenty of times in this and other threads.

 

[QuietContrarian]

I am not saying that he isn't our best in terms of zone entries, he is by far the best at that in my mind. It's what he does with the puck once inside is what I believe he needs to improve on. Not sure he has that vision component in him, especially at his his speed?

We shall see.

I feel like some posters are only capable of judging a player by his last 15-20 games.

Ehlers definitely has vision, his jr hockey, and sophmore season, definitely show that he has vision. as well as glimpses this season.

What Ehlers needs to do, is to step up his patience and trust in his teammates. - He was passing all over the place at the beggining of the season, and teammates were fanning his passes alot.

So I think he just tries to do too much himself, and needs to get over that.

 

[libertarian]

Looks like a comparison to me.

My argument is that there are very few players who can play with the speed of McDavid, and see the ice well at the same time. You're holding Ehlers to a standard that's difficult for almost any player to achieve

Actually I'd say that a McDavid stander that is difficult or impossible for ALL the players in the NHL to live up to. Except McDavid of coarse.

 

[robertocarlos]

If Ehlers doesn't score 2 or3 points tonight then something is wrong.

 

[Jets 31]

Isn't Ehlers among the league leaders for game winning goals right now , that is very important to me . Little , Frenchie and Ehlers has been our best line for at least the last 10 games and we are winning , that's good enough for me .

 

[Ippenator]

Actually I'd say that a McDavid stander that is difficult or impossible for ALL the players in the NHL to live up to. Except McDavid of coarse.

Not really. He is a top 5 player for sure, but not the best in my opinion. At last Crosby and Malkin are better as complete players. I would any time have either of them in the Jets instead of McDavid, if we think purely of what they are as players at the moment, and do not go into thinking of how many career years they have still ahead of them.

Also I see at least Kucherov, and maybe McKinnon too, as same level players as McDavid is, although maybe not better. Definitely at the same level anyway. For sure McDavid is not in any league of his own, like some people seem to already think. But he is still young, so it might of course be that in a few years he really is in a league of his own. Although I’m not so sure if it will really happen, as he has still so much of improving to do with his shot and goalscoring.

And yes, I know that he had a magnificent 4 goal night last night, but I’m still talking about him as a shooter and goalscorer generally. He has still definitely some improving to do to be a real world class top player in those aspects too.

 

[Jets 31]

Laine and Ehlers are two completely different players , Laine is one of the best shooters in the game today , Ehlers one of the fastest , most exciting players in the game . Do i want Ehlers shooting the puck if we need a goal , no i want Laine all day , every day . Do i want Laine carrying the puck , no i want Ehlers all day every day . But the best part is the Jets got both , bring on the Cup .

 

[YWGinYYZ]

@Ippenator - he's discussing McDavid's ability to enter the zone with speed and puck control, not as an overall player. This was what was being discussed earlier regarding the comparison to Ehlers.

 

[Jets 31]

He's discussing McDavid's ability to enter the zone with speed and puck control, not as an overall player. This was what was being discussed earlier regarding the comparison to Ehlers.

He was talking about people bashing Laine for his turnovers when he thinks Ehlers does it more . I was just saying that one is better at one thing than the other but together we are just fine .

 

[Ippenator]

He was talking about people bashing Laine for his turnovers when he thinks Ehlers does it more . I was just saying that one is better at one thing than the other but together we are just fine .

True. But my main point has been still that I very much hope Ehlers will seriously develop his playmaking. I can’t for sure deny that he is an absolutely wonderful skater and that he is also great with his zone entries. But what I’m so far VERY disappointed with him is the lack of creative and smart playmaking that should happen after those wonderful zone entries. And I’m definitely VERY MUCH rooting for him to succeed in that development still.

It would be an absolutely wonderful thing for the whole Jets team if that happens. My dream is that he becomes pretty much like Paul Kariya was in his prime. That would be absolutely wonderful. But as he is at the moment he pretty much frustrates me with his play when he has got to the offensive zone. Some people really settle for things easily, if the great zone entries without great execution after that really makes them happy and satisfied with him.

Seems really to me that most of the people have completely missed the point of why I’m seriously posting my disappointment in what Ehlers is at the moment as a player. It’s not about me completely bashing him as a player, but it’s about the quite substantial frustration that he makes me have most of the time when I see him play, when he time after time ends up being just another Maxim Afinogenov when I see so often signs of him being capable of being even a player like Paul Kariya. And then again and again I see just Afinogenov and get completely frustrated.